London

THE largest 'Conjuring' sale seen in London for some time, at Bloomsbury Auctions on September 8, had at its core the 460-lot collection of the late Bob Read, a 'Close-Up Entertainer' and lecturer in the UK and USA who was a tireless researcher into the history of magic and conjuring.

THE 87th London Antique Arms Fair, from September 23 to 24, has had to change venue because of essential maintenance work on the intended venue, the Ibis Hotel in Earls Court.

THERE is less than a year to go before the Olympic Games return to Britain for the third time and, rest assured, a number of themed auction sales are already in the pipeline.

FOLLOWING the recent report about cheque fraud in July on Portobello Road and Westbourne Grove, additional incidents have emerged of suspected fraud around London using cheques under the account name GC Commodity’s (sic).

DURING the early hours of Tuesday, August 16, the Antique Textiles Company in Hampstead was vandalised – the victim of what is thought to be a revenge attack.

THE Crossrail saga rumbles on for the dealers at Grays antiques centre in Mayfair.

IN yet another change to the London summer fairs scene, Haughton International Fairs have announced that Art Antiques London next year will run over the later dates of June 13 to 20.

THE National Gallery has confirmed that a previously unattributed painting spotted by an American dealer will feature in its forthcoming Leonardo da Vinci exhibition as an original work by the artist.

EARLS Court and Olympia Venues (ECO) are trying to head off Transport for London’s plans to close the Earls Court/Olympia District Line link on weekdays.

A SCULPTURE has been returned to its former home more than 70 years after it was looted during the Blitz from a bombed London church.

LEADING regional auctioneers Dreweatts have formally acquired London-based antiquarian book specialists Bloomsbury Auctions.

Traders and residents of Portobello are rallying support to fight an appeal to allow seven-day trading at the Admiral Vernon Arcade.

The auction of British ceramics at Bonhams on May 18 was the first at New Bond Street for six months and it was a big ensemble made up of the usual range of single-owner collections mingled with material from various vendors.

MALLETT have assigned the lease on their Bond Street rooms to fashion house Fendi and have confirmed that they are negotiating new premises in Mayfair.

THE discovery of a new clock by a Golden Age maker is bound to generate excitement in horological circles, but the £600,000 plus premium paid at Bonhams last week for the ebony table clock pictured here illustrates just how much the rarest and freshest examples can command.

What a difference a year makes.

BILLED as “the greatest collection of Modern British Art ever to come to the market”, the sale of the Evill-Frost collection at Sotheby’s in London did not disappoint.

WHEN a grand, photographically illustrated record of the Great Exhibition of 1851 was planned by the Royal Commissioners and Executive Committee, they nonetheless kept a tight grip on the exhibition purse strings.

JONATHAN Arnold has been awarded an MBE for services to English furniture makers in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.